Iran nuclear deal likely to embolden Iran’s regional ambitions, experts warn

WASHINGTON DC - The nuclear deal that unshackles international sanctions on Iran is likely to result in more conflicts in the Middle East and is unlikely to curb Tehran’s regional ambitions, according to expert panelists at a debate in Washington DC.

“We should not expect a breakthrough of peace in the region but rather more regional conflict,” said Jamal Khashoggi a Saudi journalist and former media aide to Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was a speaker at the Washington-based Arab Gulf Institute’s panel on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia is “ready to confront Iranian disturbances,” said Khashoggi, speaking at the debate, titled “Negotiating the Gulf: How a Nuclear Agreement Would Redefine GCC-Iran Relations.”

Saudi Arabia has been a vocal opponent of the nuclear deal Iran signed last week with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, one of Tehran’s closest trading partners.  Under the agreement Iran has pledged curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of decades-long international sanctions.

“The Iranians have not commitment to change their behaviors in the region” Khashoggi said.  

He argued that Iran is responsible for several major conflicts, including Yemen and Syria in the Arab World.  He said the nuclear agreement will further embolden Tehran to meddle in regional affairs, igniting possible wars, including direct confrontation between Riyadh and Tehran.

“We (Arabs) are not fighting in Iran; Iran fights in our region; we are on our defense,” the Saudi speaker said. “A serious intervention is required by the world” to curb Iran, he warned.

Suzanne DiMaggio a senior fellow and director at New America, a New York-based research group that supports the Iranian deal, said it is early to judge how the agreement will impact Iran’s behavior in the region.

However, she agreed that it should not be expected that Tehran would stop financing its proxies in the region, issuing a reminder that the aim of the deal is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

“We should not expect Iran suddenly become a model citizen of the international community. In my opinion, we now have an opportunity to explore Iran’s seriousness,” she said.

DiMaggio called the inspection system entrenched in the deal as “the most intrusive inspection regime the world has ever seen.”

Nadim Shehadi, a director at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the United States, said there is a trust deficit between the US administration and the Arab states at the moment, as Arabs believe the US cannot protect them should Iran choose to intervene.

“There is a deep crisis of confidence and this crisis of confidence is between this administration in the United States and its allies (in the Gulf). They have lost trust that US could protect them, especially from a danger that they perceive to be very real, which is Iranian intervention in the region,” he said.

Shehadi argued that the Iran deal will consolidate the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has already waged a “regional war.”

He warned that ISIS cannot be eliminated without taking out the IRGC in the equation. “If you want the region without ISIS, you have to have it without IRGC as well, because ISIS and IRGC are types of enemies that reinforce each other.”

Allowing Iranian forces to fight ISIS “is like pouring fuel on fire,” said Shehadi, who described both the IRGC and ISIS as legacies of the Iran-Iraq war and the former Iraqi regime.

“We are suffering now from the consequences of the Iran-Iraq war. ISIS is the legacy of Saddam Hussein that has survived -- it’s a monster that Saddam created; and the IRGC is the legacy of the Iran-Iraq war.”